home is here
by OneshotPrincess
Summary: A late night picnic and an important discussion about their futures together. Souji/Yosuke


Yosuke can tell when Souji's planning something. Well, it's obvious that he's planning something, since he's invited Yosuke out to the Inaba wilderness, just the two of them in the middle of the night. But Souji's also _planning_ something and Yosuke knows the difference. There's a preciseness to Souji's movements when he gets like this, the single-mindedness of achieving his goal translating into his body language.

(Yosuke's a little proud that he knows Souji so well now, as weird as that sounds. He remembers a time when Souji seemed like a glacier, an island all on his own. There was a time when Yosuke had said _partner_ but it felt like a lie.

And now it doesn't. Yosuke's pretty damn proud of that.)

Yosuke swings his legs from the back of the pick-up truck they'd borrowed from Kanji, watching Souji methodically lay out the picnic blanket on the grass and unload the basket he's brought from the glow of the tail-lights. He'd offered to help, then been soundly rebuffed. Further proof that his boyfriend's planning Something with a capital S. And he doesn't know why but it makes Yosuke uncomfortable.

Once Souji's done, he makes a motion for Yosuke to join him on the blanket but Yosuke shakes his head. Instead he pats the spot beside him on the back of the truck. He doesn't want to eat now; he always gets weirdly sleepy when Souji plies him with food and right now? With the blinking stars above them, a breeze blowing past and a strange lack of mosquitos?

Nah, potential emotional baggage first, food later.

Souji hesitates for just a moment before settling down beside him. This close their arms are pressed together and he can smell Souji's cologne. He takes a deep breath, bumps his shoulder to Souji's and asks, "What's up?"

Souji sighs too. "We could have eaten first you know," he grumbles, but he's looking straight forward, hands clasped in front of him. "University," he says finally. "That's what's up."

Ah. Well, maybe going it Souji's way with the food first would have been better. Yosuke's not...eager to talk about that.

"Have you decided where you're going yet?" Souji asks him.

"No," Yosuke snorts, a hint of incredulity seeping into his voice. "Not a single clue." It's been weighing on his mind for a while now. He hasn't failed his entrance exams, as a matter of fact. Sure, he hasn't gotten into any stellar universities but he's been accepted into a few. Going to any of them would require moving away from Inaba though.

He's...He doesn't know what to feel about that part. Everyone would be growing up, moving away, moving on. University, dorm rooms, apartments, careers.

"I don't even know what I want to study," he admits, uncomfortable. Or if he wants to study anything at all. It seems like everyone else has it all figured out, even the juniors. Kanji's focusing on his mom's shop, Yukiko on the inn. Chie's gonna be a cop and Naoto and Rise already have careers. That just leaves Teddie which is no comfort at all.

"I've been thinking about Iwatodai though. It's not that far and, I don't know. I've got a good feeling about it. What about you?" Yosuke asks. Abruptly he realizes that he's steeling himself for the answer. "Got any big plans yet, partner?"

"Well," Souji replies in a measured voice. "There is something. Remember how I told you I was applying abroad? I got accepted into a few places. Scholarships and all, just like my parents wanted."

Yosuke feels his stomach sink. They'd talked about it once or twice, over the phone but it'd felt like something that was far off into the distance back then. And if there's one thing that both him and Souji are sometimes absolutely awful at, it's this sort of shit. Yosuke tends to run away and deflect and Souji, well Souji just pretends that a problem isn't a problem to begin with.

(But that's also why they're good for each other too, he likes to think. Souji probes and Yosuke pesters and between the two of them they manage to pry each other loose somehow. Eventually, with time, but they do.)

"And?" he asks quietly. His breath ghosts over in the air, like hesitation given physical form. "Are you going to go?"

There's a pause, one in which Yosuke can see the conflict in Souji's eyes, the tension in his shoulders. When he finally speaks, for the first time tonight it isn't in his calm, collected diplomat voice. "I don't know," he confesses, voice soft and timid, like he's scared of the words themselves.

Oh, _Souji_. Yosuke grabs Souji's hand and threads his own fingers through them, squeezing gently. "Tell me about it."

Souji's fingers tremble against his, almost imperceptibly. "I don't know what I should do. I feel like...I _should_ go. It's going to be a big opportunity. Not everyone gets chances like this, I'd be wasting it if-"

"Yea, no," Yosuke interrupts. Yosuke knows where words like that come from. Those aren't Souji's words. "I'm asking you if _you_ want to go. That's it. Tell me what you want, partner."

Souji angles his face even further away, so that his bangs cover his eyes. "I don't know. I don't know what _I want_ to do. What...what do you think I should do?"

Yosuke startles at that.

(Once, in the biggest show of vulnerability Yosuke'd ever seen from Souji he'd admitted to Yosuke that sometimes he felt like a nobody. That he felt like a series of masks, presenting the faces people wanted to see. That the reason he'd never had to face a shadow was because he had nothing to face inside him.

 _I'm an imposter_ , he'd said, _And you're all going to leave me when you figure it out._

 _That's bullshit_ , Yosuke had replied. _Imposters couldn't bring us together this way. Empty people wouldn't be worrying about this right now. If you were empty you wouldn't make me feel the way I do._

Souji had looked at him, honest and vulnerable, and then all but crashed into him in response.

It still amazes him sometimes, that apparently all the incredible things Yosuke sees when he looks at Souji aren't the same things Souji sees when he looks in a mirror).

"This isn't about me," he insists, even though he desperately wants it to be. Yosuke can be mature about this though. For Souji. "It's about you. What you want. But…" he bites his lip, "But in the interest of full disclosure, I want you to stay. Of course I want you to stay."

He turns so that he's facing Souji, places his hands on his face and tilts up. His eyes aren't _exactly_ watery, not really, but it kills Yosuke to see it anyway. He thinks there's still more shit that Souji's not telling him, an argument with his parents maybe or _something else_. But he lets it slide for now. Instead, he presses his forehead to Souji's. "I probably shouldn't say this. But for what it's worth, I...I think you want to stay too."

Souji shudders and closes his eyes. "Think about it," Yosuke presses insistently. "How hard is it for you to do things for yourself? What's the most important thing to you-"

"Stop," Souji breaks away from him. "Don't just- Just...give me some time. Alright? Please."

"...Yeah, of course. Whatever you need." He's trying not to feel cold, trying not to feel like he's royally messed this up, made it worse for Souji somehow. He isn't succeeding. He roots around for a change of topic as he watches Souji from the corner of his eye. "Food's getting cold," he says finally. "We should, we should probably get on that."

Souji blinks down at the spread as though he'd forgotten it was there. "Oh right," he mumbles. "Right. There was, uh, something else. That I wanted to tell you. Give you, actually."

"Okay?"

Souji gets up from the truck then and roots around his pocket for a moment before facing Yosuke with his palm up. And there, on the centre, something is glinting silver.

"What the fuck?" Yosuke asks a little hysterically, a lot loudly, a hundred times more alert all of a sudden. Souji winces in response.

"It's a ring," he supplies, as if Yosuke can't see it with his own freaking eyes.

"I can see that it's a ring! I'm asking you why you're giving me a ring in the middle of the night!"

"Well, isn't it kind of obvious?" Souji asks and the bastard has the audacity to look genuinely perplexed. Astounding, how their roles have been completely reversed in just a few moments. Yosuke kind of wants to bury himself in the sand until his heart beat comes back down to 'still alive' levels.

"Let me get this straight," he says. "You had some sort of a breakdown over moving away again for university- _so you decided we should get married_?!"

"What? No!"

Yosuke looks at the ring, then back at his boyfriend. "Souji, you better start clearing shit up right now."

"It's not- I'm not _proposing_ to you. I mean legally we wouldn't be able to get married anyway." Yosuke lets out a high pitched wheezing noise. _Legally_. He can't believe that Souji's picking apart semantics at a time like this.

"You're mad," he says uncertainly. "I didn't expect you to be mad. Look it's not an engagement ring alright? It's just something left over from Daidara that I never got around to using. Think of it like...a promise ring."

"A promise ring," Yosuke repeats. He has no idea what his voice sounds like but judging by Souji's frown it can't be good.

"If...if I do decide to go abroad...I wanted you to have something from me. As a promise that I'd come back. And that...you'd be here for me too."

A promise. Souji wants Yosuke to have something from him. As a promise. As if every part of Yosuke's life hasn't already been completely permeated by Souji. As if Yosuke could possibly have any other option than to wait for him. God for someone so smart Souji could be such a dumbass sometimes.

"Look, if you don't want it," and Yosuke can see Souji's fingers closing over the metal in slow motion, like a collapsing gate. "I'll just-"

"I want it!" he blurts out impulsively. "I didn't say I didn't want it!" He snatches the ring from Souji and holds it up to the moon. It's plain, not inlaid with any stones or designs, but it's got the weird little glow that let's Yosuke know that it's definitely something that was forged from demon remains.

He puts it on his index finger on his left hand, then flexes. It looks...good. It fits.

"Man, sometimes you're such an idiot," he says. "You nearly gave me a heart attack you know?"

Souji's still looking at him a little bemusedly that tells him he still doesn't get why Yosuke reacted the way he did. Unbelievable.

"I like it," he tells Souji, partially truthful. "But trust me, I'll be here for you no matter what. After everything we've been through you're not losing me to _college_ man. You couldn't lose any of us if you _tried_. We've already followed you to hell and back, we'll follow you to school in Antarctica if you want."

Souji smiles at him, his first real smile of the night. "Thank you," he says simply.

"Yeah, well. I've literally had enough of feelings for one night. Tell me you cooked like five courses so that we can splurge then pass out in the car," he complains. He very carefully doesn't fiddle with the ring on his finger.

"It'll be uncomfortable," Souji reminds him. "Plus, we told Kanji we'd bring the truck back tonight."

"What's he gonna do? Scale the hills at night?" Yosuke dismisses him flippantly and strides over to the picnic blanket, trying not to think about the implications of the weight on his finger.

"Yosuke," Souji grabs his wrist and drags him back until their chests are flush together, like a goddamn movie hero. Of course Yosuke blushes, how could he not? "I mean it. Thank you."

Then he presses a kiss to Yosuke's lips, feather-soft and chaste, and Yosuke can feel himself warming inside.

"We'll be alright, yes? No matter what?" he breathes out.

Yosuke closes his eyes. Fuck it, he thinks wildly. Promise rings, engagement rings, their entire futures looming over them. At the end of the day, Souji's always gonna be the endgame for him, that's all that matters. "We'll be alright, partner. I promise."

* * *

Souji had only come to visit for the weekend (just to give him the ring, Yosuke thinks) and he heads back on the earliest train back to the city. The others definitely notice the ring on his hand, even though he tries to mitigate the effect by wearing it on his index finger, but they don't bring it up. Except Teddie of course but Chie manages to get him to shut up about it. Occasionally his friends could have some tact after all.

Exactly a week and a half later, Yosuke comes home from work at Junes to discover a long series of texts on his phone.

(18:00) _I know you're at work right now but_

(18:00) _I think I was just disowned_

(18:25) _That was a joke. I was NOT literally disowned. Don't freak out_

(18:30) _I got into a fight with my parents. I told them that I've been moving around at their behest for literal years. They didn't take it well._

(18:40) _I just want to set down roots somewhere. I want to feel...at home._

(18:40) _And I have that in Inaba._

(18:41) _I know you guys won't leave. Logically, I know that_

(18:42) _But I don't want to leave you guys either._

(18:42) _Especially not you._

(18:45) _Does that make sense?_

(18:50) _Call me back when you get this okay?_

(18:52) _In the meantime I do have a game plan._

(18:53) _This is what couples do right?_

There's a picture attached at the end of the last message, a gritty photo of a newspaper segment. It takes a bit of squinting before Yosuke can finally make out the details.

Apartment listings. In Iwatodai. Yosuke drops his phone and buries his face in his pillow. Un-fucking-believable. Trust Souji to throw him a curveball like this in the middle of the week.

But. But he knew he'd had a good feeling about Iwatodai. Somewhere new, close enough to Inaba. He tries to imagine it, living _with_ Souji instead of in a dormitory, getting to see him everyday, coming _home_ to him. Then he has to bury his face in his pillow again in a vain effort to curb the warmth in his cheeks.

They're going to have to talk about. Face-to-face and way longer than just a late night conversation. They're going to have to think it through, this is their _future_ they're talking about. And Yosuke's gonna have to get the whole story with his parents out somehow, something he knows from experience is going to be like pulling teeth from Souji.

Nevertheless, when he picks up his phone again, the silver ring seems to glint in the light, full of promise. He presses on speed dial and waits for his partner to pick up.

* * *

 **A/N:** Watch me project my own uni troubles onto these boys at the speed of light! End of high school was just awful for me but hopefully it's better for my otp? Lemme know if you guys liked it!


End file.
